What if?
by Diesel-girl81
Summary: DO we really know how Riddick ended up in slam in the first place? Maybe I have an idea...


_fire scorches raw wounds_  
_pain wafts like acid breeze_  
_skin charred black crumbles_  
_a façade broken in the moment descent tugs at every fiber_  
_of every being _  
_tearing limb from life_  
_with no sense of time or reason_  
_her beaten body plummets_  
_a pregnant mother _  
_fragile cryo-embryos_  
_she labors for integrity_  
_(it's too soon, too soon)_  
_no time for questions_  
_a sacrifice_  
_purge the brood to save the mother?_  
_What if?_  
_Could one sleep with that decision_  
_Or would it weigh heavy in the heart or deep in the belly_  
  
He steps disoriented from amidst the wreckage. His large frame twists from side to side surveying the landscape. Smoke drifts and fire belches from the cataclysm around him. He shades his goggled eyes for a good look around. The parched earth scrapes loudly under his feet as he limps and shuffles forward. A body, the only one he can see is twisted, broken, crushed by pieces of the hull. He pulls the prone form free. A woman. Blond hair, half burned away, her face a grotesque mask, frozen forever in surprise. He gently closes her startled lids with careful fingers and steps away.  
  
A strange silence fills the air, deafening. He feels trapped in the heat, engulfed in the suffocating stillness of the dead planet. He feels panic rise like bile in his throat threatening to asphyxiate.  
  
_Panic threatens to destroy the man who lacks a strong mind._ _fire scorches raw wounds_  
  
He fans his face with a moist palm and falls to his knees. Imaginary bands, tight like leather restraints close around his chest. He hasn't felt terror like this since the cell. He takes back the thousands of times he cursed the slam, the darkness, just to be there again. Anything but this. Anything but utterly alone.  
  
_premature cryo-babies scream for a mercy shecannot givedestroyed, cast about, thrust forth from her protective loins(too soon, much too soon)_  
_a promise of safety now forgotten  
survival now gains firmer ground  
One.  
Crawling, weary across the sand,  
restraints dangling,  
Steely sub-space umbilicals trailing,  
One. _  
  
His face presses against the sand. His stomach lurches, threatening to spill. He coughs wretchedly. His head spins as the heat of the air forces his will and his body flat against the ground. A face circles past his eyes. A child. In his mind he watches her play.  
  
Her auburn hair catches the light as she spins; her dark eyes fill with mirth. She sees him hiding watching her from a distance. His heart leaps in his chest as their eyes lock. His eyes. She runs as she always does. Away. Calling for daddy. Not for him. The tall blond man that lifts her high in his arms could never be her father. So light, so fair. Her features a dark contrast against his pale skin and eyes. Every fiber of his being screams in pain as she squeals with delight. The man huddled in the bushes is forgotten. He watches and his heart tears as the small child pulls her "daddy" by the hand into their house.  
  
_The tearing of flesh  
The screams that echo in his mind  
Spiraling into oblivion  
Something new  
A cry_  
  
_A cry that penetrates every fiber of his being  
and tears his soul  
wrenches his heart.  
He hears their voices  
their shared jubilation  
he stands on the outside  
forever on the outside  
unable to claim what's rightly his  
theirs_  
  
Her birth certificate would never read Richard B. Riddick – father. Never. But he knew. More sure than he had ever been about anything else. In the moment their passion had collided and his seed had spiraled out of control into her depths, he knew. In the moment he had spoken the unspeakable words; I love you; he knew. Before she acquired a 'special glow' and a swollen belly. He knew.  
  
The moment in which they met was fleeting. Their passion intense. He'd seen her sitting, cocktail in hand, at the bar. He admired her from a distance then had taken vacant seat beside her. His Armani suit had clung in all the right places. He'd seen her admire him with a quick slip of her eyes over his body. Lust hung heavy in the air. Small talk quickly led to fervent conversation. Soon, as evening waned and night began, she'd led him to her suite.  
  
_He'd teased her flesh  
Heightened her senses  
And she'd called out another's name  
William..._  
  
Her husband, she explained, was a mercenary officer. She'd slipped a picture from her purse and held it out to him. The tall, blond man in the picture smirked at the camera; lips pulled into a boyish grin. A blue eyed devil.  
  
He'd seen her several times since then and it was always the same. He'd tease her, please her and in the final throes of pleasure she'd cry out for her husband. He hadn't minded at first, but it finally began to grate on his nerves that he couldn't seem to pleasure her enough to forget the man she'd married.  
  
Impotent was he, her devil-eyed prince. Some time ago a nasty bugger had nestled a bone shiv against his spine; a piece of which was still embedded. It had severed certain nerves she said, very important nerves. Riddick filled the void in her that her husband could not. And if for those brief encounters she was satisfied in pretending him someone else then so was he.  
  
And so he came to watch his daughter play from a distance as always. Hiding a few feet away, no one the wiser. Riddick often wondered if the impotent merc ever questioned how his flaccid member had ever managed to father a child. He pondered while in wait for his daughter to appear how the fair woman he'd fucked had explained away the child's dark features.  
  
_The rain splashes  
Hard against his face  
As he races through the darkness  
with his prize  
She screams and pounds his chest with ineffectual blows  
Driving it hard to his core that she doesn't trust him  
Doesn't know him  
Will never call him daddy  
He holds her tight to his body as he runs  
Wrapped in a light blanket_  
_A vain attempt to keep out the rain.  
Tears mingle with the rain on his face as he runs(She's mine, all mine. Finally!)  
His legs struggle  
From running for most of the night  
At last he reaches a motel  
Where neon lights beam the salvation of vacancy._  
  
He was startled by the strength of her cries. He'd never thought she'd hate him this much. Her small body thrashed and convulsed with rage on the motel bed screaming for nothing but the daddy he'd stolen her from. There was nothing he could do to quiet her. It was in a final moment of desperation that he left her in the relative safety of the room to writhe and seethe and slipped back out into the night. He walked for many miles with his insides churning at the though of what he'd done. It wasn't till late in the morning that he'd stole back to the motel.  
  
_The heat of the flames bathed his body in their bright glow  
They danced merrily  
Licking greedily  
His mind teetered on the cusp of insanity as he stood awash in their glow._  
  
The brittle skeleton of the motel gave a final defeated heave and toppled to the ground. The few firemen that still remained jumped clear then continued spraying the smoldering rubble. Riddick ran a shaking palm over the stubble on his scalp as he stared in shocked disbelief at the charred ruins that certainly held the body of his daughter. He began to laugh, cynical laughter that mocked life, death and the god that would let a little girl die.  
  
The aged fire chief stepped towards him.  
  
"Not really a laughing matter son, someone lost their little girl tonight..." Someone sure did, Riddick thought. "A wet blanket" the chief continued, "someone draped it over the radiator to dry. Must have been some kind of short...you know what these old buildings are like. A shame, a real shame."  
  
Riddick emptied his stomach on the street as the fire chief went to gather his men. A police siren was the last thing he heard before darkness overcame him.  
  
_Even in solitary confinement.  
Voices pierce his ears  
Distant  
A hundred words  
A hundred tones  
Guards...  
shuffling walk  
forked tongues  
Bitter words  
"kidnapped a kid"  
"burned her alive"  
monster...  
monster...  
"... to the slam.."  
"...too dangerous..."  
monster  
bit in his mouth.  
hands tied  
monster._  
  
The cryo-tube was a welcome sanctuary after the prison cell. Riddick felt beaten down. In the moment his daughter had died in the motel Richard Riddick had died too. He stared across the passenger cabin at William Johns. How fitting that the "father" of his child should be the one to ensure his arrival at Slam. William's wife had adamantly denied any association with him. He'd tried to make her see. He'd never meant any harm to come to her. He'd loved her. Needed her. That was all.  
  
Riddick's motive for the kidnapping the Johns' daughter was never questioned. And no one believed he had not intentionally started the blaze.  
  
_What if she lied?  
What if she was never really mine?  
There could have been others,  
for a woman so lovely,  
so lonely. What if she lied?  
Then what did I do?  
eye for an eye?_  
  
He welcomed the carnage, the fire when it came. He reveled in the thought that his end would mirror hers. He relished the idea of the flames licking his body, charring his skin. Dying the way she must have died. So alone, so afraid. Abandoned by the man who'd stolen her to love her. Destroyed by the man who'd given her life.  
  
He opens his eyes and is greeted by the endless burning sun. The sand sticks to his face where rivulets of moisture have escaped the confines of his goggles. His exposed skin feels the first tingles of the sun's scorching rays. He rolls to face the heavens and rests his head back comfortably in the sand. _Don't cry baby,_ he whispers, _Daddy will be home soon._

**"What If"**  
By Creed  
  
From the album _Human Clay_  
  
  
I can't find the rhyme in all my reason  
I've lost sense of time and all seasons  
I feel I've been beaten down  
By the words of men who have no grounds  
I can't sleep beneath the trees of wisdom  
When your ax has cut the roots that feed them  
Forked tongues in bitter mouths  
Can drive a man to bleed from inside out  
What if you did?  
What if you lied?  
What if I avenge?  
What if eye for an eye?  
I've seen the wicked fruit of your vine  
Destroy the man who lacks a strong mind  
Human pride sings a vengeful song  
Inspired by the times you've been walked on  
My stage is shared by many millions  
Who lift their hands up high because they feel this  
We are one We are strong  
The more you hold us down the more we press on  
What if you did?  
What if you lied?  
What if I avenge?  
What if eye for an eye?  
I know I can't hold the hate inside my mind  
'Cause what consumes your thoughts controls your life  
So I'll just ask a question  
What if?  
What if your words could be judged like a crime?


End file.
